Missing You
by St. Harridan
Summary: "She can't let herself miss him." Or it would be like falling in love all over again.


Written for **unwritten_icons **on LJ.

Prompt #5: She cannot let herself miss him.

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Missing You

She still remembered the first time they met. It wasn't actually a regular meeting wherein polite gestures were exchanged. No, it was much different. She hadn't expected it in the first place. A teenager, a mere _boy_, who possessed such incredible spiritual pressure and the ability to see spirits as clear as day wasn't what a shinigami came across often on a daily basis, and she had to admit that that first encounter – despite how chaotic it had been – was the start of countless wonderful experiences shared with him.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as a vision of them walking through the streets of Karakura flashed before her eyes. Though the sun was on the verge of being swallowed up by the oncoming darkness, they still wandered the streets, aimless, as though they had nothing better to do. If she were to be honest, she would say that turning into random alleyways and shops just for the hell of it was ridiculous. But if he was there with her, walking in step with her brisk pace, sporting that goofy grin of his...it was fun.

She remembered Senna, the purple-haired girl who arose out of the blue one day to help them combat enemies in the world of the living. He had taken a quick liking to her, and she him. The two of them took their own sweet time fooling around while she had to pitch in to help the crisis that threatened to shatter Soul Society _and _the world of the living. But, in spite of how much her emotions roiled within her every time she saw them together, or heard the latest gossip from Kon, she knew all too well that he was still there for her. That he would definitely pick her over Senna.

There were days when she didn't know whether she was a shinigami or a hollow. She would feel helpless, desperate, constrained, like everything and everyone, innocents as much as sinners, was going to go straight to hell. Like the gods were angry at her, trying to torture her and push her past the boundaries of her sanity. During days like those she blamed her admiration for the late Kaien. When he died, it was like a rug had been pulled from under her feet – only worse. During days like those...he would come around with that stupid grin on his dumbass face, give her forehead a playful poke or two, and then continue on like as if remembering a dead friend was nothing. She would always trail at his heels though, with a new yet involuntary spring in her step.

And, as Rukia knelt on the ground, feeling the soft, smooth cushion of grass beneath her knees, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh. The warm, late noon breeze caught it and whisked it away over the rooftops of Karakura. His hometown. The place where they first met.

She let her fingertips trace the engravings upon the stone, pursing her lips as the biting cold entered her limbs. It was familiar, yet it felt foreign. The etchings were nearly gone, worn and weathered by rain, sunshine and storm, but they still stood out with a steadfast resolve mirroring the personality of the very person whose grave it represented.

She let a smile, sad and strained, spread across her lips as she felt the all too familiar ache deep within her chest. Having that pain chew at her heart every single day didn't make her immune to it – not even the slightest bit. The wounds never healed and, she was quite sure, they never will. Not unless someone killed him up in Soul Society to enable him to be reborn here...or unless her powers were returned to her.

But she knew that neither will happen any time soon, if ever.

Her fingers curled into tight balls, nails digging deeply into rough palms, but the pain was drowned out by the heat of the battle she fought inside her. A battle she was fighting with herself.

_Don't let them fall. _

She gritted her teeth and ground them together till they squeaked.

_Don't... Please don't..._

If she let herself miss him, it would be the equivalent of surrendering her body and soul to him.

It would mean falling in love all over again.

Droplets fell upon her lap, and finally Rukia, mad with grief, surrendered.


End file.
